I Am Drums

“This book is the song of my middle-school heart.”—Michelle Schusterman, author of the I Heart Band! series Sam knows she wants to be a drummer. But she doesn’t know how to afford a drum kit, or why budget cuts end her school’s music program, or why her parents argue so much, or even how to explain her dream to other people. But drums sound all the time in Sam’s head, and she’d do just about anything to play them out loud—even lie to her family if she has to. Will the cost of chasing her dream be too high? An exciting new voice in contemporary middle grade, Mike Grosso creates a determined heroine readers will identify with and cheer for.

Despite their central role in many forms of music-making, drummers have been largely neglected in the scholarly literature on music and education. But kit drummers are increasingly difficult to ignore. While exponents of the drum kit are frequently mocked in popular culture, they are also widely acknowledged to be central to the musical success and aesthetic appeal of any musical ensemble in which they are found. Drummers are also making their presence felt in music education, with increasing opportunities to learn their craft in formal contexts. Drawing on data collected from in-depth interviews and questionnaires, Gareth Dylan Smith explores the identities, practices and learning of teenage and adult kit drummers in and around London. As a London-based drummer and teacher of drummers, Smith uses his own identity as participant-researcher to inform and interpret other drummers' accounts of their experiences. Drummers learn in multi-modal ways, usually with a keen awareness of exemplars of their art and craft. The world of kit drumming is highly masculine, which presents opportunities and challenges to drummers of both sexes. Smith proposes a new model of the 'Snowball Self', which incorporates the constructs of identity realization, learning realization, meta-identities and contextual identities. Kit drummers' identities, practices and learning are found to be intertwined, as drummers exist in a web of interdependence. Drummers drum; therefore they are, they do, and they learn - in a rich tapestry of means and contexts.

If you want to have more fun on the drums, improve your skills faster, and play along to real music, then you need to build a solid foundation. The Best Beginner Drum Book gives you a clear path for getting started on the drums and skipping the frustrating obstacles that most new drummers face: setting up your kit, holding the drumsticks, learning notation, creating catchy beats and fills, learning musical styles, and playing your favorite songs.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 A Today Show Best Book of the Year A Booklist Book for Youth Editors’ Choice 2019 A Boston Globe–Horn Picture Book Honor Book 2020 An NPR Favorite Book of 2019 A Quill & Quire 2019 Book for Young People of the Year “Extraordinary.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Inspirational.” —Booklist (starred review) “Laugh-out-loud funny.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review) “Will tickle kids and adults alike.” —Kirkus Reviews “An instant classic.” —Quill & Quire (starred review) From E.B. White Read Aloud honor artist Matthew Forsythe comes a picture book about a magical drum, an emerald forest, and the little frog who dares to make her own music. The biggest mistake Pokko’s parents ever made was giving her the drum. When Pokko takes the drum deep into the forest it is so quiet, so very quiet that Pokko decides to play. And before she knows it she is joined by a band of animals —first the raccoon, then the rabbit, then the wolf—and soon the entire forest is following her. Will Pokko hear her father’s voice when he calls her home? Pokko and the Drum is a story about art, persistence, and a family of frogs living in a mushroom.

George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control is the original classic, often called the bible of drumming. In 1993, Modern Drummer magazine named it one of the top 25 drumming books of all-time. In the words of the author, this is the ideal book for improving "control, speed, flexibility, touch, rhythm, lightness, delicacy, power, endurance, preciseness of execution, and muscular coordination," with extra attention given to the development of the weak hand. This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced rhythms and moves through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.

Proficiency as a drummer has always come from great hand dexterity. However, with the introduction of modern drumming techniques, it has become increasingly necessary to gain complete independence of both the hands and feet. With various rhythmic exercises in easy-to-read notation, 4-Way Coordination is designed to guide the drummer from simple patterns to advanced polyrhythms. Through the study of this method book, the student will gain invaluable listening skills and techniques that will provide insight to drumming in all styles.

Follow along as Daniel finds the musicality in everyday objects he discovers right at home.

(Drum Book). If you're new to the drums, you are probably eager to learn some songs. This one-of-a-kind collection provides an accessible combo of drum notation and kit legends for the most popular songs drummers like to play from artists like the Beatles, Nirvana, U2 and Metallica. Songs include: American Idiot * Beast of Burden * Clocks * Free Fallin' * Give It Away * Hurts So Good * La Grange * My Generation * Peg * Shake It Off * Smells like Teen Spirit * Under Pressure * Walk This Way * Wipe Out * You Really Got Me * and more.